The succession to the power of Vladimir Putin with the choice of an heir, when it happens, will undoubtedly represent a watershed in the history of Russia and the whole world given that, in the guise alternately before prime minister now of the president, the current tenant of the Kremlin has de facto uninterruptedly the fate of Russia since 1999. By examining the history of Russia from the end of the imperial monarchy (1917). In the event that he actually manages to complete his current mandate (whose deadline is set for 2030) Putin will have ruled the largest country in the world for 31 years, even exceeding the 29 -year -old record still held by Stalin, leader of the USSR from 1924 to 1953, the year of his death. Having occupied the summit of power for so long has given Putin to shape Russia in his image and likeness, directing it on his current political and historical journey. It is therefore not a mystery that there is the need to investigate who could be after him the man who will mark the new historical season of Russia and, to date, the most recurring names of the potential “eligible” are substantially four including Aleksey Dyumin – the designated heir – e Mikhail Mishustin.
Aleksey Dyumin: the designated heir
Born in Kursk in 1972 and raised in a military family, in addition to being a soldier for 22 years before landing to politics, Aleksey Gennadyevich Dyumin is the youngest of all the most sight candidates to become the “new Russian tsar”. It is also the least known both internally and internationally, but it is also the one that has enjoyed the greater protections from Putin himself in the last 10 years that seems to be personally favoring his career and the “acclimatization” process in the rooms of Russian power.
After leaving military life, in 2016, Dyumin was appointed Governor of the Oblast of Tula, a region located not far from Moscow and home to some of the most important production companies and realities that are part of the Russian Militar-Industrial Complex. During the current Russian-Ukraine war, Tula’s Oblast played a very important role as a “rear” for the Russian armed forces engaged in the conflict and the brief insurrection of the PMSC Wagner led by Evgeniy Prigozhin, an event during which Dyumin himself seems to have played an important role in defusing, ended there. In addition, he had a leading part in the coordination of the Russian efforts aimed at disloding the Ukrainian forces that in August 2024 had occupied a salient in Kursk’s Oblast.
To date, it is still early to be able to say how and when the next succession to the Kremlin will happen but, if things were to go according to the plans, to date there are few doubts that Dyumin, pupil of the president supported by the armed forces and the state security apparatuses will be the new undisputed leader of Russia for the years or decades to come.
Dmitry Medvedev: the fallen president
Born in 1965 in St. Petersburg, Dmitry Anatalyevich Medvedev is certainly not a neophyte of Russian politics. With a long experience in the high spheres of Muscovite politics, so much so that he himself became president, between 2008 and 2012, and then prime minister between 2012 and 2020, his presidency, net of the short but violent war that opposed Russia to Georgia for the possession of the regions of Abkhazia and of the Oxetice of the South in the summer of 2008, coincided with the period of maximum distension between Russia and the West for the population for the population for the population for the population. Russian, as well as the rise of its middle class.
After Putin’s formal return to the presidency in 2012, Medvedev, even without disappearing, was progressively more and more relegated to the margins of decision -making power seeing his increasingly eroded influence from the unstoppable ascent before the “Siloviki” (the men of the intelligence and the security apparatuses) and then of the military who, especially from 2014 onwards, have become a new unavoidable center of power within the Russian.
Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukraine war, Medvedev has distinguished itself particularly for the use of an increasingly aggressive rhetoric towards both the West and Ukraine and the internal opposition by placing unequivocally in the field of “hawks”. Many observers have interpreted this choice as an attempt to ingratiate themselves with the most extreme fringes both of the public opinion and of the armed and safety forces that in the past years had repeatedly accused him of being a “westernist” when not a real “NATO agent in incognito”. In any case, it is unlikely that Medvedev can aspire to Putin one day since his reputation in the eyes of the Cremlin, elite and most of the population has been cracked for some time.
Mikhail Mishustin: the excellent administrator
Born in 1966 near Moscow in a family of Jewish origins, Mikhail Vladimirovich Mishustin is the current Prime Minister of Russia and is a consummate technocrats, having covered numerous positions within the state bureaucracy during his decades of career.
He gained international notoriety starting from 2020 when he replaced Medvedev in the position of prime minister, leaving his mark both in the management of the Covid-19 pandemic and in supporting the war efforts of Russia, especially on the economic side, during the current Russian-Ukraine war, but the Russians remember him above all as director of the federal taxation service. During his Directorate (2010-2020), the percentage of value added tax (VAT) not collected from the public tax authorities fell from 20% to 1%, an exceptional result for a country like Russia, but which was obtained by resorting to coercive tools that made it invaded to the eyes of the people, in particular of the nascent entrepreneurial class.
Although several observers have indicated it as a potential successor of Putin, even in his case the possibilities are restored since, despite the undoubted administrator and organizer skills, Mishustin is devoid of charisma and is seen at most as a “high -level bureaucrats” than as the “leader of a country”. Furthermore, it is not clear how deep his testers between the military and Siloviki are. Lastly, the same Jewish origins play against him since, although there are numerous Jews in apical positions at the top of the Russian Federation, the anti -Semitic stereotypes among the Russians are still very widespread and no Jew has ever guided the country in any phase of its millennial history.
Sergey Sobianin: the man of the oligarchs
Born in 1958, Sergey Seyonovich Sobyanin, is older from both Medvedev and Mishustin and is only 6 years older than Putin. Furthermore, on the contrary, both of the president and the other two “potential candidates” mentioned above, which are all of Petersburg or Moscow origin, Sobyanin was not “born with the pedigree”, being originally from the autonomous district of the Khanti-Mansi-Jura (Sobyanin is of ethnic mandes and was born in the small village of Nyaksimvol). However, he too is a long -term politician and earned the fame of excellent administrator already in the period between 2001 and 2005 when he was governor of Tymen’s Oblast. Copped in the Gotha of national politics, Sobyanin had its definitive consecration in 2010 when he became mayor of Moscow, a position that he still holds.
Over time Sobyanin has managed to forge important relationships with the world of Russian oligarchs, starting with those who, like him, are of Siberian origin, to end with those orbid around the Russian capital. City of 17 million inhabitants (but if there are also those who live in the entire conurbation and every day they move to work on it stable or depend in one way or the other on the services provided by it, it reaches 40 million), Moscow exceeds the total population of numerous countries of the world by dimension and alone produces about half of the GDP of the Russian Federation. Administing it effectively has always represented for the Russian politicians of yesterday and today a formidable card to play to make the jump upwards, even if it is true that, to date, no “mayor of the capital” has yet become the leader of the country.
Although Sobyanin can be considered “the man of the oligarchs”, it is very difficult that he can truly aspire to sit on the supreme clog of the Kremlin. Against him he plays the fact that he is already “too old” now to guarantee anything more than a short “interregno”. Furthermore, even if in the collective imagination of us “western” the Russian oligarchs represent the quintessence of the overflow of the elitist class of the “new Russian Empire”, in reality their star has already been falling for a long time, since the end of the Elli era and the beginning of the Putin era. Although they have respectable wealth and productive assets available, the oligarchs today hold only a residual political power, having had to give way to the Siloviki and the military. The possibilities that their man can impose on the Kremlin are therefore very low.
